Culture
"I've been to the Royal Opera House this evening, darlings! No, not the main auditorium, it's getting far too commercial. We were in the Linbury Studio. Much more intimate, more of a space if you know what I mean.
What were we seeing? Well sweetie, it was this terribly daring, outré little piece called Silence Of The Soul by Walker Dance Park Music. Oh yes, modern dance. Highly imaginative. Challenging? Well yes, I suppose it was just a little."
Seriously though - pretty damn' impressive. And fucking hell were these people fit.
I started out with the typical worry you get with modern dance - Is it going to be an hour of people running into walls and miming being pulled by ropes while someone hits a cymbal every 32 seconds exactly?
And there's a few minutes at the beginning that do trigger concerns. It's a bit abrasive, and the music leans towards the rhythm being more apparent in its absence. But by the ten minute mark they've got you. The whole exercise becomes integrated into yer actual experience, the movements begin to draw you in as you start to spot the cycles and the structure, and you get very glad you're seeing it. And as is often the case, among the tightly-structured overall piece, some of the smallest individual movements make the most impression. Highly sensual, occasionally with too much going on around the stage to take it all in, but with moments of both technical excellence and emotional resonance.
WDPM are an unusual operation in that the composer and choreographer work together to develop each piece from scratch, as a whole entity rather than music coming first and then dance being fitted over the top of it, and then dancers and musicians perform together. Silence Of The Soul is their biggest piece to date, coming in at an hour, but it flies by. The applause at the end was loud and long and thoroughly deserved.
And fucking hell these people are fit.
February 26th, 2004 - 23:12
Okay they were fit, but fit as in how?
February 27th, 2004 - 07:00
Ah – yes, imprecision in my language.
Fit in the traditional sense – even the generally rather waif-like women seemed to have little trouble hefting the much more burly blokes as and when required. And though by the end of the whole thing they were all breathing heavily, most people having been that active for that long would have been checking in to an oxygen tent.
Of course, some of them were fit in the other sense too….
February 27th, 2004 - 21:54
Modern Ballet women, for want of a better expression, tend not to be waif-like. Classical Ballet women are waif-like, modern ballet women are chunky.
But it could all be in the eye of the beholder
February 28th, 2004 - 23:03
Very droll Jon, glad you enjoyed the experience!